Hugo Chavez, Submariners and Water Rationing

In adjacent Miranda State the Lagartijo Reservoir is at the lowest level ever recorded. Residents of Venezuela’s capital face strict cuts in water service through May 2010.

President Hugo Chavez has urged citizens to reduce water consumption, including his suggestion last week that showering should last only 3 minutes.

In response to drought, water supplies in Caracas are shut off for as much as 48 hours per week, staggered throughout the city, according to state-owned water utility Hidrocapital officials cited in AFP reports.

But is something more amiss? Critics, including the municipal agency that distributes Hidrocapital's water to the city, say that poor infrastructure has made it difficult for water pressure to reach some of the poorest parts of the city. Water taps in poor districts are known to run until they dry up, because nobody can turn them off. The real cause of the trouble is decades of inadequate system maintenance.

Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez, however, prefers to blame excesses of unfeeling, inhuman capitalism.

What will the rich fill their swimming pools with? With the water that is denied inhabitants in the poor neighborhoods. source

Which brings about today a spot of good news: Shortages pose a risk to Venezuela's Chavez

What are submariners to think? One diesel submariner revealed this:

We generated only sufficient fresh water for officers to shower every 11 days, general enlisted showered every four days, and only food handlers were permitted to shower every day.

And, even in the nuclear era, we were informed during submarine school how to take the 2-minute shower. But not from this lady.